Our statutory consultation for Padeswood CCS has now closed. We held our statutory consultation between Tuesday 2 July and Monday 12 August 2024. We would like to thank everyone who took part in this consultation and provided feedback. For a limited time, you can still visit our dedicated consultation website here for information about our updated proposals and to view our consultation documents.
Concrete is the second most consumed material on the planet after water.
It is used to build homes, schools and hospitals, as well as in crucial infrastructure such as wind farms, tunnels and roads.
Cement is the key component of concrete, an essential construction material with no viable alternative. But cement production is currently carbon intensive. A large proportion of the carbon emissions come from the chemical processes involved in making cement, which cannot be reduced by using low carbon or renewable energy sources. The only way to produce the cement that the UK needs, without emitting large amounts of carbon, is to capture and store these emissions.
Heidelberg Materials UK intends to construct an industry leading carbon capture facility at our Padeswood cement works in north Wales. This would be the first carbon capture enabled cement works in the UK, representing a ground-breaking project for the global cement industry.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) does exactly what it says – capturing carbon dioxide produced during cement manufacture before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it by pipeline, and storing it safely under the seabed. It is a safe and proven technology that has been around for many years.
Over the last decade, we have been investing in our site to make it more sustainable. However, without carbon capture and storage we will not be able to reach net zero.
Heidelberg Materials is committed to achieving net zero by 2050 and this project gives us the opportunity to place Padeswood at the forefront of the worldwide movement toward carbon-neutral building materials.
To find out more about Heidelberg Materials UK click here.
Benefits
Our plans at Padeswood are a stepping stone to decarbonising the construction process. The UK simply cannot achieve its net zero goals without the building materials we use being carbon neutral.
We intend to capture up to 800,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. The scheme will be an integral part of the HyNet industrial cluster, which could save up to 10 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
Along with its environmental benefits, the project will:
bring significant investment to Padeswood cement works and the region’s economy;
help to secure a sustainable future for 2,500 people employed in the UK cement industry, 15,000 indirect jobs, and 2.5 million jobs in the construction industry;
create 54 new full-time jobs at Padeswood, and up to 350 additional jobs during construction of the capture plant.
This is a project of great significance as it is a step-change to support the transition of the wider construction industry to a net zero future – ultimately helping the UK meet its net zero targets.
Statutory consultation and next steps
We held a statutory consultation on our proposed carbon capture project from Tuesday 2 July to 11:59pm on Monday 12 August 2024.
This formal statutory consultation presented our updated detailed proposals, potential significant impacts and the mitigation measures to be employed to avoid, reduce and/or off-set any potential impacts.
We will have regard to all comments received during the statutory consultation. All feedback is important to us and will help to influence the design of the project. We will set out a summary of the responses in a Consultation Report, which will detail how we have had regard to feedback and how feedback has influenced the proposals.
Following this formal round of consultation, we expect to submit our application to PEDW in summer 2024 accompanied by an Environmental Statement. Subject to planning permission, we intend to commence construction of the proposed development in 2025 with commercial operation by 2029.
For a limited time, you can still visit our dedicated consultation website here for information about our updated proposals and to view our consultation documents.
Consultation events
We are holding a series of in-person events and webinars to provide you with additional opportunities to speak to the project team, ask any questions you may have, and give feedback on our plans.
Buckley Cross Methodist Church 3-7 Padeswood Rd N, Buckley CH7 2JL Saturday 13 July 2024, 10:00-13:00
Emmanuel Church Penyffordd 42 Vounog Hill, Penyffordd, Chester CH4 0EZ Saturday 13 July 2024, 14:00-17:00
Buckley Cross Methodist Church 3-7 Padeswood Rd N, Buckley CH7 2JL Wednesday 17 July 2024, 13:00-20:00
Emmanuel Church Penyffordd 42 Vounog Hill, Penyffordd, Chester CH4 0EZ Thursday 18 July 2024, 10:00-17:00
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) does exactly what it says – capturing carbon dioxide produced during cement manufacture before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it by pipeline, and storing it safely under the seabed. This will enable us to produce net zero cement, which can be used in construction projects across the UK.
As everything from new offshore wind farms, to nuclear power stations, to clean transport infrastructure uses cement, it is crucial that we make the entire process, from production to construction to maintenance, carbon neutral.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which means it contributes to global warming and climate change. It is produced by many processes, including the burning of fossil fuels and the chemical processes by which cement is made. The UK and other governments around the world are trying to cut emissions of this gas to help limit climate change.
The UK produces greenhouse gases, but it can also remove them from the environment. Net zero is when the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions are equal to the amount removed from the environment.
The UK can reduce its emissions through CCS and other measures such as switching to renewable energy. We can also remove emissions from the atmosphere through actions such as tree planting.
At our Padeswood site, we will capture CO2 produced during the cement manufacturing process. The CO2 will then be safely transported via an underground pipeline and securely stored in depleted gas reservoirs under the seabed in Liverpool Bay.
The Liverpool Bay CO2 store will be up to 1km below the seabed and approximately 32km offshore. Once there, emissions will remain underground indefinitely, covered by a dense layer of shale.
Our plant will link into the HyNet pipeline network and the captured CO2 will be transported underground to its destination first at the Point of Ayr and then into Liverpool Bay.
The CO2 emitted from the cement plant will be captured and stored making the cement net zero which can then be used in construction projects.
Everything from new offshore wind farms, to nuclear power stations, to clean transport infrastructure uses cement, so it is crucial that we make the entire process, from production to construction to maintenance, carbon neutral.
The CCS project should have no effect on the levels of dust at the site.
Alongside the project, Heidelberg Materials UK has already invested, and is committed to providing further investment, in improving the site’s operations and addressing dust emissions.
A full environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been undertaken to support our planning application, which will be submitted to Planning and Environment Decisions Wales (PEDW).
An EIA ensures that the Welsh Government and relevant consultees have a comprehensive understanding of the effects of a project, which are then taken into consideration in the decision-making process. We have assessed any potential significant environmental effects of the proposals and identified appropriate measures to mitigate these.
Full details of our EIA can be found in our ‘Environmental Statement’ which is available as part of our statutory consultation. The Environmental Statement, and a Non-Technical Summary of the Environmental Statement, can be found on our dedicated consultation website here.
HyNet will reduce carbon emissions by 10 million tonnes each year when it is fully operational. Our Padeswood CCS project will account for up to 800,000 tonnes of this substantial saving.
In October 2022 we held drop-in events in Buckley and Penyffordd where we introduced our plans and invited participants to feed back their comments.
In January and February 2023 we held our non-statutory consultation. As part of this, we held two public online events and four drop-in events in Buckley and Penyffordd. We shared our proposals in more detail and participants were able to ask our team questions. We also invited all participants to submit written feedback on our proposals, which could be done online or in the post.
In addition, we updated our website with our project brochure, sent letters to all local residents, placed adverts in local papers, issued a press release, shared information via Penyffordd Community Council and Buckley Town Council social media and placed posters and brochures in local venues.
We have now carried out a statutory consultation on our proposals. More information can be found on our dedicated website here.
The project has recently progressed to the due diligence and negotiation phase of the Government’s Phase-2 cluster sequencing programme, which is an important step forward and brings us closer to realising our ambition to deliver the first net zero cement works in the UK, placing Padeswood and Heidelberg Materials UK at the forefront of the industry’s transition to a low carbon future – helping decarbonise north Wales and beyond.
We have now held our statutory consultation, where we presented our updated Padeswood plans in detail and provided the community with a formal opportunity to comment. We will take account of this feedback when finalising our planning application, which we plan to submit to Planning and Environmental Decisions Wales (PEDW) later in the year.
